Technical Field
The disclosure generally relates to retrieval of device-type managers (DTMs).
Related Art
Each of different products such as plant asset management, standalone engineering tool, and other benchtop applications has its own catalog, an example of catalog is a list of different device-type-managers (DTMs). Engineers usually select a device-type-manager (DTM), based on a target field device from the list of device-type-managers (DTMs) currently installed in a client machine. Launching of the device-type-manager (DTM) is made based solely on which device-type-manager (DTM) is installed in the client so that engineers may launch outdated device-type-manager (DTM) in a case that the device-type-manager (DTM) installed in the client is outdated.
A DTM package, an installation software, is required to be installed to get a DTM for use. The DTM package includes the installation software and one or more device-type-managers (DTMs) such as communication DTM and device DTMs on a client. A user installs the DTMS using the installation software. The user associates a device-type-manager (DTM) which should be launched with a VMR information related to vendor, model and revision of a field device. A new revision of the product (plant asset management, standalone engineering tool or benchtop application) may include new versions of DTM package. When the new revision of the product is installed, the associations are freshly created and sent to the server as a default association. User association occurs when the user selects the association of VMR to a DTM and this updated association information is stored. In some products, the updated association information is stored in a server. It is hard to make the same DTM to be used, launched for a particular device by different users. It is difficult to know if there is an updated DTM which is more appropriate for the particular device.
Generally, in most of the Field Device Tool (FDT) based products the user needs to select the appropriate DTM while scanning field network for devices. Certain products show a recommended list of DTMs to the user, that is appropriate to the identified device, based on Manufacturer Identifier (Vendor), Model and Revision details of the device. The recommended DTMs shown to be used after scanning the field network is only ranked according to: 1) Manufacturer ID, 2) Model and 3) Revision (VMR). If there are a lot of DTMs that match the VMR, a user will have to spend a lot of time and of browsing to select the appropriate DTM. The time and effort spent depends on at least one or more of: experience and knowledge to identify the appropriate DTM and list of DTMs to be browsed to locate the identified DTM. The time and effort required is repeated every time when the user performs scan operation on the network. For example, if the result shows 500 DTMs, but a user usually selects the last one, he will have to keep scrolling down for every Scan request. When a scan is performed, VMR information is read from the device. This VMR information is compared to a DTM-catalog file to identify the recommended list of DTMs. Recommendation logic is based on the comparison of the two sets of information.